Internal Overflow?

1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
Does anyone know wat kind of material i would need so i can inclose my overflow PVC pipes in...like how a reef ready tank has that black box?!?! Im thinkin I will have my tank drilled in the bottom and make two intakes. One being shorter than the other with a gate valve so i can have the taller one just barely being used...i heard this was a silent way of doing it. Than i want the return in the back wall and split it with pvc
 
1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
thxs BTL!!! I havent really seen em though.. lol havent been looking for em i guess!
I thought of doing that but my main idea was to hide the PVC!!!
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Yep easily made....call your local plastics place and they can get you the material....you'll need to purchase WeldOn solvent 3 or 4 to put them together, but the to attach/secure them to the tank as stated above simple silicone is the ticket.....
Routing the teeth into the overflow covers might be a bit tricky depending on tools you have, but there's ways around that as well.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
A couple quick examples....

Adhesive you'd need to build the overflow cover itself....

This is 1 way I go about cutting overflow teeth, but you can also use a jig out of a dovetail jig and works just as well.

Just a pic of the teeth cut, and mock up for gluing.....

Mock up and how to keep things square and how I shim to get a good glue seam.....
 
1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
hmm i never thought of that saxman...i just figured most of the noise would come from the input! Thank u everyone! Great stuff!
Im deff gonna need one of those hand dremels!
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1guyDude http:///forum/thread/386670/internal-overflow#post_3398402
hmm i never thought of that saxman...i just figured most of the noise would come from the input! Thank u everyone! Great stuff!
Im deff gonna need one of those hand dremels!
You'd probably be better served if you had access to a table saw. You could make a overflow with just a table saw (teeth and all).
Call around to some local plastics fabricators, usually they will have some scrap laying around that they can sell you. Look for black acrylic or black ABS sheet. I made mine out of ABS simply because that's what the local guy down here had on hand. ABS is what is used for overflows in the pre-built reef ready tanks, as well as pump and powerhead casings, etc. So it's safe.
 
1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
damn...table saws are spendy! Man....thats okat i guess ill need one eventually!
Thxs for that link too...i was thinkin making a long tall one cuz i want my piping going directly through the bottom of the tank! Wat do u experts think?>
 
S

saxman

Guest
The only thing I see happening with the two standpipes is redundancy. What you're effectively doing by having one shorter than the other and tuning the short one on the back end amounts to having a single standpipe and tuning it with the T-valve configuration I use (except you have to build a second standpipe and drill a second hole on your tank bottom). That's not to say that dual SP's are a bad thing, esp. for larger setups where I do use double SP's to keep up with the return pump.
Don't forget, if you go with a single SP, you do need to tune the venting either with hole(s) in the cap or you can use an adapter with hex flats on the top of the SP and shove an oversize cap onto the hex flats, which makes the SP "self-venting" and requires no adjustment. Personally, I've never tried the "self-venting" version, but I know a good aquarist who uses this method (he calls me "old-school" hehe).
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
I don't see anything wrong with a dual standpipe. The advantage of a dual standpipe IMO is/would be used as a backup. Anything crazy could happen causing a blockage of the primary; which in turn would overflow the tank. In the event of a blockage the secondary would pick up and run. BeanAnimals design eliminates the need for vent holes to be drill into the pipes. I've used the vent hole method and find it can be a PITA getting the right hole size to keep it quiet, and possibly needs tuned/adjusted from time to time.
 
S

saxman

Guest
Quote:
I don't see anything wrong with a dual standpipe. The advantage of a dual standpipe IMO is/would be used as a backup.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saxman http:///forum/thread/386670/internal-overflow#post_3398581
The only thing I see happening with the two standpipes is redundancy.
I don't believe the OP mentioned the tank size, or maybe I missed it, but for instance, a 29 gal with dual SP's would be a bit more "overkill" than say a 100 gal with dualies.
Quote:
I've used the vent hole method and find it can be a PITA getting the right hole size to keep it quiet, and possibly needs tuned/adjusted from time to time.
That's why I mentioned the "self-venting" SP configuration a buddy of mine uses, altho IME, once I get a SP/bleed valve tuned, I've never had to go back and tweak them...maybe I've been lucky.
 
acrylic51

acrylic51

Active Member
Saxman I was saying the only reason to run a dual SP would be that the 2nd one is merely a backup and would never be utilized unless the first becomes blocked. Better to be prepared than not.
Not really sure on size tank though. How the diagram is drawn the 2nd SP would never work to feed the skimmer chamber. If the 1st SP is lower it would carry all the flow leaving the 2nd SP virtually dry.
 
1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
Sry for late response pps....its a 75gal with a 20l sump!
The idea i was told was that the lower one would be below water level and u control the intake with the gate valve so the higher one would barely have a water flowing over it....he said it would make it quite. This i dont know cuz i have yet to even attempt the pvc building of this! Just wanted to throw this out their and c wat i got back!
Wats SP mean? Wat is this talk about venting....can u lay it down in lamens terms for me! lol
I figured i would have some kind of grid or intake grided for certain obvious reasons!
anyways running the two pipes together would create some minor flow to the fuge!
 
S

saxman

Guest
Quote:
Originally Posted by acrylic51 http:///forum/thread/386670/internal-overflow#post_3398688
How the diagram is drawn the 2nd SP would never work to feed the skimmer chamber. If the 1st SP is lower it would carry all the flow leaving the 2nd SP virtually dry.
Precisely...
To be honest, I've NEVER had a SP fail, not that it isn't possible, and in small/medium setups, there's precious little real estate to warrant enlarging the O/F to accommodate a second SP. Then again, there are many ways to "skin a tank".

1guy,
"Venting" is basically the same as your house's plumbing. Those pipes sticking out of your roof are drain vents which allow the water to drain more efficiently. Think of a straw dipped in water with your finger over it and how it holds water...then what happens when you remove your finger...the water drains.
Standpipes typically require some type of venting or they "gurgle". Sometimes they require none, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. The way it's typically done is to drill one or more holes in the cap of the SP. What we usually do is drill a 3/16" hole in the cap, shove a short piece (1" or so) of rigid airline into it, and add a short piece of "regular" air line to that. NOW you can add an air valve so you can "tune" the amount of venting you get. Start with the valve closed, and then fiddle with it. If the valve is wide-open and the SP is still noisy, repeat the process as needed ( I have one SP that has 3 wide-open holes in it).
Here's an article Renee (Cranberry) wrote on how to DIY a Durso-type SP that should answer a lot of questions:
http://www.seahorse.org/library/articles/standpipe/standpipe.shtml
Renee is "in charge" of building SP's at our house...when we're setting a new tank up, I just tell her what I need and how many, and *poof* next thing I know, she hands me a custom SP...can't beat THAT!
 
1guydude

1guydude

Well-Known Member
okay thxs for that but uve opened up new questions lol...
why is the intske pointing down? I was just thinkin leave it open at the top of the SP(lol) and i would get a waterfall effect and prob a lot of noise huh? Also the 2nd SP to my understanding is to silence that and the gate valve would kinda be like my valve as cranberrys was?!?!
 
S

saxman

Guest
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1guyDude http:///forum/thread/386670/internal-overflow#post_3399702
okay thxs for that but uve opened up new questions lol...
why is the intske pointing down? I was just thinkin leave it open at the top of the SP(lol) and i would get a waterfall effect and prob a lot of noise huh? Also the 2nd SP to my understanding is to silence that and the gate valve would kinda be like my valve as cranberrys was?!?!
The gate valve in your dwg will control the amount of water coming out of your lower SP, the air valve at the top of an SP controls the amount of venting (air), which actually allows the SP to work more efficiently, hence less "flushing".
Since that second lower SP has a gate valve that controls the amount of water flowing thru the SP, you should be able to run a single SP and use the gate valve to tune out the flushing. I suspect that since the taller SP won't really be working, or working very little, all you're really doing is tuning the SP that IS working for max quiet, and the taller SP is just more work.
If you want two SP's, I'd run identical duals and tune the amount of flow with a valve on your return by bleeding some of the flow back to the sump. This works because the amount of flow thru the SP's is proportional to the flow of your return pump, which is why all flow stops when you shut the pump off. The "stepped" SP's just seem like a bass-ackwards way to acomplish the same thing, since all you're doing is limiting flow thru the SP. Not saying the LFS guy's way won't work, but it's a round-about way of doing it, and if one is going to run dual SP's, why have one that either barely works or doesn't work? Finally, FWIW, two SP's means you have twice the chance of noise.
If you try it, let us know how it works...
 
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